


to where you are now

by nymja



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: Bran Stark is a ghost in his own body.





	to where you are now

**Author's Note:**

> i just. have a lot of bran feelings.

He knows better, as one foot falls in front of the other, the branch underneath the soles of his boots bending. Bran’s arms are raised parallel at the shoulder, moving at angles like a gull’s wings in flight. He grins as he looks down, the waters of the creek rushing by him, broken by the stones that jag out of it. That could easily break open his head and leave him drowning. He doesn’t have the wolf’s blood as much as his sister, but every once in awhile he has the recklessness of his namesake.

It’s not a long way down, but he’s six and he feels like he’s mastered something as the bow bends but doesn’t break under his weight.

\--

everyone thinks time flows like a river, rushing in one direction to something larger and fathomless. it knows better. that history is something backwards and forwards and there’s nothing that can contain its patterns. 

but if time must be a river to those around the raven, the thing that is not bran stark must be the stones breaking it apart.

\--

He is closer to his mother. But when his father smiles, which is never a large expression, it always makes Bran grin--wide and toothy. 

His hand rests on top of his head, ruffling his hair. Bran has three brothers, two sisters, and a Theon, but he knows when his father’s attention is just for him.

They say his head fell, and Bran wonders if it fell the same way Sir Rodrik’s did. If they managed to cut it better, if his father’s face was smiling in its small way and if he thought of Bran at all before he was gone. 

\--

underneath the heart tree, a circle of flaming archers surrounds it, and there is something that rattles within. it sounds like a boy, screaming. it echoes around in the raven’s head, demanding and demanding because he's seen what the raven’s seen, and so the raven decides to appease him. 

it becomes a rat in the crypt, listening to the sounds of fingers that have long since lost their nails scraping against stone, begging to get out. there is nothing of ned stark in these bones, the raven knows this. but the echoes of someone who is not, who is no longer, disagrees. he screams for a father and what’s become of him underneath the night king. underneath the grave that was so-hard fought for. 

bear witness, the raven thinks, if you must.

\--

 _How could he do this?_  Bran thinks, eyes red as his body jostles against Hodor’s back. Smoke curls above the sky while Winterfell burns,  and he does not know its plumes are a tide pulling him along. 

_How could he take away our home?_

\--

the raven knows the fate of theon greyjoy. knows he will run, he will fall. his body is a platform that someone else must use to jump. because seconds are not seconds to the raven. in the moments to come, they will be infinite.

 _no,_ the boy begs.  _not like this._ and so the raven grants this last favor to him.

“theon,” the raven says for the boy, because it is what theon needs to hear, and what the boy needs to say. it's what the story dictates. “you’re a good man. thank you.”

the man has tears in his eyes, and the raven wonders if theon greyjoy knows the gift he has been given: that it was him who heard the last words of bran stark.

\--

The arrow hits closer to the target than his, from further away. Outraged, Bran runs, and as he does his anger fades into laughter. Arya laughs with him, sticking her tongue out as she goes faster, better. 

He never catches up, but she comes back and helps him practice his shooting.

\--

the raven gives arya stark the weapon her mother bled upon. it was used to defend the boy, and it will be used to do so again. the raven knows her road, how lonely and paved with blood it is and was and will be. but she has her part, her steps that lead her to where she needs to be. 

because arya stark has been made the way she must, to be faster and better. her eyes search the raven’s, looking for something buried. she will always be looking for something buried.

 _blue eyes,_ it knows she will hear.  _grey eyes,_ it knows she will not, as the raven forges her back into the weapon she’s tried so hard to escape. 

\--

He never tells him, but when Bran thinks of himself as a warrior, he thinks he’d like to be someone like Jon. His half-brother never boasts or teases, he only moves like someone who has something that needs to be done.

“Let’s try that again,” Jon says with a soft smile, his hand reaching for Bran’s and pulling him up.

So he does, because Jon would try again.

\--

the raven watches as the dragon queen rides side by side with the bastard who is not a bastard. they smile and embrace each other, but the raven knows jon snow, who is also jon stark, who is also targaryen, will do something that needs to be done.

\--

Summer and Shaggy Dog get along better than any of the other direwolves, and Bran and Rickon laugh as they sit on a fence post and watch them play. Neither know it will be the last time they laugh together. 

“Shaggy Dog runs faster!” Rickon insists, as they throw sticks in the Godswood and their wolves chase after them. They’ve taken bets on which of their wolves will return first.

“Not fast enough,” Bran counters.

Shaggy Dog does come back first, but not with the stick. Blood drips from his maw as he holds a dead rabbit between his teeth.

“Ha!” Rickon says, chin tilting up with pride. “That’s even better.”

Summer comes back with the stick, keening as he lowers his head. Bran runs his fingers through his soft fur, and frowns as Shaggy Dog drops the carcass to the ground and the rabbit lies on its stomach, unmoving in the dirt.

\--

the raven does not take satisfaction in bran stark losing himself, as he surrenders to the branches sinking their claws into him, as he forgets what it meant to be pack. to be the wolf he once was. 

it does not feel anything, because this is a story that will be told again and again. it knows bran stark will be lost. it knows he will never meet his dead, because the raven cannot cherish one story more than others. that is not its way.

rickon stark will be forgotten, his role over and small.

\--

When he thinks he is gone, is dead because he can’t move his toes, Bran feels his mother’s hand over his forehead and her quiet singing and praying. It’s what pulls him back.

His eyes open, and Robb is there, smiling even though his eyes are sad. It’s Robb that makes Bran realize he’s still alive, though he doesn’t understand why he still can’t move. Later he'll tell him that he wishes he had just died, and Robb's heart will break for him.

\--

the raven shows bran stark many things, but it will not show him that night. it is not done out of kindness, but because it cannot have bran stark witnessing what will break him, for there is so much more it needs him for.

\--

Sansa’s thumb rubs over his cheek, sighing as she takes off the mud smeared across it. “You’re lucky I caught you first,” Sansa says crossly as she plucks a leaf from his hair. “Mother wouldn’t be pleased with you climbing again.”

She never plays with Bran the way his other siblings do, and she scolds him almost as much as she scolds Arya, but it’s moments like this that Bran smiles because Sansa always keeps his secrets.

\--

sansa stark’s eyes well with tears as she pulls the raven into an embrace. the raven allows it, because sansa stark must find her footing in the stones of this new winterfell and the memory of bran stark will help her.

“bran,” she sobs.

“no,” it tells her, because she is the one who must know secrets, if only to share them later. “not anymore.”

she is the only one of the boy’s siblings who will fully understand that bran stark is never coming home. 

\--

“Little Lord,” Osha says, her words coming out with a sigh. “You’ve got to keep your strength up if you’re going to make it to the Wall.”

Bran doesn’t want to eat. He doesn’t want to be a Lord. How could he do either of those things when his father is dead and all he ever knew is gone?

He doesn't want any of this. All he wants is to go back to his family, to pretend none of this has happened.

\--

they call it bran the broken, which is wrong. it is no longer bran, and it is not broken. but perhaps that is what they need for comfort, thinking of the raven as _less than_ so they can look away from what it truly is. it makes no difference to the raven. stories are treads on the wheel, they dig into the land. westeros has trenches so deep they are graves.

“all hail bran the broken!” 

it feels the currents they do not. knows what flooding they will bring.

“all hail bran the broken!” 

the raven stares at the pieces gathered round it, cheering a name that is not its. it has seen these faces before, knows they will come again. 

the wheel will keep spinning, as it has to. new graves will come of it, but new stories will not. the raven must keep the old ones alive.

\--

“I’m Bran Stark of Winterfell!” He screams, knowing it’s the only thing that will protect them.

\--

time is not a river. but once there was a boy pulled under, who never came up for air.


End file.
